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1782604 
Journal Article 
Marking springtails (Folsomia candida) with rubidium 
Dombos, M; Stimmann, MW 
2001 
1 
Pedobiologia
ISSN: 0031-4056
EISSN: 1873-1511 
45 
6 
551-560 
WOS:000172790900006 
Marking springtails is a basic tool to evaluate their
fundamental ecological phenomena. Rb marking is based on the fact that enriched rubidium in an
organism can be tracked trough the experiment. Our goal was to improve the rubidium-marking
technique in Folsomia candida (Willem) for both microcosm and field experiments. We investigated
four methodological problems of this technique, in particular, we determined the required Rb
concentration in the diet to reach marking level, measured the period when labeling could be
detected under two different feeding conditions, and we estimated the effects of Rb on
springtails' growth. Because marked and unmarked animals are always mixed in the course of
recapture we also measured the levels of contamination between labeled springtails and those in
the control groups. For introducing rubidium, we fed animals with Rb-treated Baker's yeast.
Rubidium-chloride labeling persisted in springtails for 27 days during which the Rb-levels in
marked animals remained distinguishable from those in unmarked ones. Rb-elimination rate depended
highly on the feeding conditions, with Rb-elimination being faster when food was in excess. The
fitted exponential model to Rb-elimination suggested that Rb-labeling may be used for 46 and 103
days for experiments with and without food respectively. We found no effect on Collembola growth
at low Rb-levels (1.2 mug Rb/g dry yeast) but at higher concentration growth was reduced. We
found that contamination occurred when springtails were stored together in glycerin, however the
unmarked sample with the highest Rb content was still just 4.8% of the lowest marked sample.
These results provide a basis for mark-release-recapture and other studies using Rb marking on
springtails. 
rubidium; marking technique; mark-recapture; springtails; Folsomia candida